


The long wait

by sirona



Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010), Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, Crossover, F/F, F/M, M/M, Pining, sherlock POV
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-04
Updated: 2011-08-04
Packaged: 2017-10-22 05:17:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,913
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/234257
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sirona/pseuds/sirona
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock gets dragged by John to Harry and Clara's ultrasound appointment. Expecting to be bored out of his mind, he falls to his usual hobby of detection. His attention is captured by a reconciled couple who are expecting their second child, but it's not hard to work out that things between them are not going all that swimmingly. Told from Sherlock's POV.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The long wait

**Author's Note:**

> It hit me today that Sherlock is only half an inch shorter than Steve, and I wondered what Danny might make of it if he happened to see it while he was on holiday to London with a pregnant Rachel. And then Sherlock kind of took over. No knowledge of _Sherlock_ is necessary, except that Sherlock likes deducing things about people. Knowledge of _Hawaii Five-0_ is beneficial, but not essential.

Sherlock pauses just inside the door to the clinic, looking around with barely veiled distaste. Why John had insisted on attending was beyond him, but insisted he had, and Sherlock had little choice but to wait it out -- or flounce off to do something more interesting (like reading, or pestering Lestrade), and have John pretend not to sulk about it for the rest of the day. That way lay a massive argument that Sherlock just didn't have the patience for, especially since sleeping alone in a too-empty bed got unbearable very quickly indeed, and then he would have to think of a way to make it up to John that would probably involve postponing the experiment with arsenic that he'd been planning for the last week.

John smiles at him, that slightly shy, pleased smile that could make Sherlock do quite ridiculous things for the man.

"Won't be long," John murmurs, placing an unobtrusive hand on Sherlock's arm and squeezing lightly before he follows Harry and Clara inside the ultrasound room, to check on the progress of the surprising advent of his little niece or nephew. Sherlock resigns himself to being bored out of his mind for the next half-hour.

To stave it off at least a little, and in no mood to entertain the utter stupidity of the publications generally displayed in waiting rooms of medical practices, he turns his mind to the other people in the room, thinking to amuse himself in the usual manner.

He gives the waiting patients and their families a second, much more thorough look -- and, half-way down the room, finds his eyes locked to those of a man sitting next to a little girl of about 9, and a pregnant woman that looks to be at least six months along. The man is stocky, not very tall, blond and tanned, with a piercing pair of light blue eyes that remind Sherlock of something cold, barren, covered in frost, dead--or perhaps dormant, but not quite alive.

The man looks away quickly enough, shifting his broad shoulders like he wishes to displace an uncomfortable thought. Sherlock doesn't follow, however, undeniably intrigued by what he sees. After a moment the man's eyes land on him again, like he's helpless to stop them. He looks away just as quickly as before, as if caught doing something he shouldn't. Sherlock settles to what he does best.

The man and the pregnant woman are not married, although there is a band on the ring finger of the man's left hand, a little lighter than the otherwise tanned skin but still darker than it would be had he just taken the ring off. The way they sit together, though, so unquestionably used to each other, casually intimate -- they must have been married, and therefore they had--separated? Oh, and she had re-married and separated again -- her own, wider wedding-band-shaped tanline is much lighter than the man's. And going by the way that, when he isn't stealing glances at Sherlock, the man can't take his eyes off his daughter, she had probably gone with her mother after the divorce.

The way the man carries himself, it's so familiar that Sherlock places it immediately -- a police officer, most certainly. But his clothes, the pressed slacks, the tie, the way he wears his hair -- definitely not British, although his ex-wife most certainly is. Their daughter, from what he can hear of her easy chatter, has been raised in the States, so the man is American. It looks like they're here on holiday, because their tans have not faded in the least. They live somewhere with a lot of sun -- California? Florida? No, their suntans are much darker than the weather systems in those two states would allow. There's something loose, relaxed, at least around the little girl -- her parents are both much too tense, and there are definite signs of unhappiness in the creases around their mouths, the tension in their eyes. Sherlock doesn't have to be a genius to see that the reconciliation is not going as well as they'd hoped.

The man's eyes dart to him and away again. Sherlock wonders briefly whether the man finds him attractive, whether that's the source of the strain between the couple, but the man's eyes don't fix on him -- it's like he looks right through Sherlock, seeing someone quite different that must share a trait with Sherlock -- his hair? No, most likely his height. At just a touch over 6', Sherlock is certainly taller than most people around him, and the tallest man in the room by a fair degree. So the man that this man is thinking of is tall, with some sort of distinguishing marks at his upper arms, judging by the way his gaze lingers on Sherlock's -- probably tattoos. For those to be visible all the time, the climate is definitely warm, even hot where they come from, and Sherlock only has to think for a moment to reconcile the looseness of their daughter with the suntan and the likelihood of heat before he determines that they must have lived in Hawai'i, at least for some time.

He won't lie -- it has been quite a while since such a mystery has presented itself in the course of an ordinary day. Determined to find out more, he stands and walks to the window, observing the man's reaction from the corner of his eye. The man watches him surreptitiously, a wistful look in his eyes that are still a little glazed, undoubtedly superimposing another picture over him -- someone broader, standing tall, moving differently -- faster? Straighter? More determined? Another cop, then, or someone with Military training. He sees the man's fingers clench on themselves until his knuckles whiten and there's an unhappy twist to his mouth. Whoever it is, this man misses him desperately; he's clearly used to touching him, too, so -- lover? Probably, although by the strength of his reaction the man definitely feels more than simple attraction for him. Sherlock imagines what it would be like to have to leave John behind, forced through unfortunate circumstances to let him go -- the look of devastation on the man's face is easily placed in light of this idea.

It's therefore easy to conclude that his partner's pregnancy is most likely an accident, likely borne out of a feeling of nostalgia, of longing for something long past, maybe her inability to save her marriage and his desperation to get his family back.

Sherlock feels an uncharacteristic pang in his chest at the thought of what they, he, must be going through. It is very rare that Sherlock would identify with the subject of his deductions, but he only has to think of John, of something like this happening with John as the man and possibly Sarah as the woman, and his stomach actually cramps at the thought of John insisting he do the right thing, because that's the kind of man he is, no matter how he feels about Sherlock, or how ridiculously devoted Sherlock is to him. He doesn't know if he could survive it; and here this man is, forced to endure just this for the sake of his principles. It's admirable just as much as it's tragic.

Unthinking, Sherlock glances at the woman -- and is struck by how shrewd her gaze is, resting on him. So much so, in fact, that he feels discomfited. There's something bleak and desperate about her, like she knows her ex-husband-partner is not quite there with her, like she's watching her family fall apart before her eyes, both of them trapped because of her accidental pregnancy, happy as they both are about it, out of choices and out of options but to see it to the bitter end. She looks like she knows there isn't going to be a happy ending for the two of them.

For quite the first time in his life, Sherlock finds himself feeling something very much like pity.

John chooses this moment to come back out and draw his attention effortlessly, like a lodestone. Sherlock's almost glad of the distraction -- he is unused to such maudlin thoughts, to feeling so cut off and drifting. John is right there next to him, solid and alive and wearing that expression of quiet happiness that Sherlock would go to frankly frightening lengths to preserve.

"Everything okay?" he asks quietly, and John smiles an affirmation.

"Yes, everything is perfect. _He_ is perfect."

Sherlock's lips quirk at the joy in John's voice. "It's a he?"

"Yes. It's quite clear."

Harry follows her brother out of the door, guiding Clara before her with a solicitous hand at the small of her back. They are both glowing from the inside, looking half-terrified and half-unbearably proud.

"Rachel Edwards," the nurse calls, and the couple Sherlock had been observing push to their feet, the man's hand at his partner's elbow to help her up. The little girl jumps up with her parents, looking overexcited.

The man throws Sherlock a last glance as they pass him; an expression of utter helplessness and hopelessness flashes over his face almost too quickly, there and gone again in the space of a blink. Sherlock's lips twist in sympathy.

He turns to look at John again, and sees him staring after the man with a frown. Sherlock recognises John's particular brand of jealousy-possessiveness-warning off, and can't quite stop the flip of his heart, part-pleasure, part-something he's not quite ready to name, but knows it's there regardless.

"Do you know that man, Sherlock?" John asks mildly. It doesn't disguise the steel in his voice.

"Not technically," Sherlock says. It goes unmentioned that he knows almost everything about him, as he tends to do. "Relax, John. It's not me he's after."

"Oh?"

"He's a police officer in love with his partner, but he got his ex-wife pregnant and now sees no choice but to stick by her," Sherlock states, with a shrug and his usual disregard for the people around him.

The door to the ultrasound room, which had started to swing close, freezes in its path. A moment later it tries to close again, but a quiet, resigned voice from the inside stops it.

"Danny? It's true, isn't it, what that man said?"

Definitely British then, Sherlock thinks with a small twinge of satisfaction.

"Rachel, come on," a man's voice pleads, clearly American. He sounds helpless, and pissed off about it. "I'm with you, we're together now; how many times do I have to say it?"

"But it's not what you want, is it."

The answering silence is damning enough.

There's a sigh. "I can't believe a random man that's never even met us knows more about you than I do," the woman--Rachel--says, peeved and disappointed, but not really upset, merely philosophical. "Well. It's not like I haven't seen this coming."

"Rachel, I can't do this right now," the man says tiredly. "This is not the place."

"Quite right. But we will talk about it when we get home." She sounds determined, and Sherlock deduces that this conversation has been a long time in the making.

The door closes. Sherlock shares a look with John, wondering whether perhaps things might work out for the couple, for the man--Danny. He can't help but hope so.

John shrugs, bemused. "Let's go home," he says, brushing his fingers over Sherlock's hand.

Sherlock would follow him to the ends of the earth; but he contents himself with merely saying, "Yes."

\-----

**Author's Note:**

> Now with sequel! [Someone Like You](http://archiveofourown.org/works/270447).


End file.
